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Detective Jason Barron of the St. Joseph Township's police department was a 23 year veteran of the force, but that did not mean he had seen a lot of action. Things were generally quiet on his beat. There were the regular vandalism cases, drunk and disorderlies, sometimes assaults -- but never the type of thing he would see in a big city. St. Joseph's small year-round population just did not amount to much in terms of crime, and the college kids were reasonably well-behaved... as far as college kids go.

It was for that reason that Detective Barron was surprised by the call he was currently responding to: A dead body in the woods on the east side of campus.

When Detective Barron rolled up to the scene one of his deputies, a slightly slower fellow named George, was already there. Barron was comforted to see that no local media was there yet. Nor were there any gawkers. In the bigger cities there were a number of people refreshing the police radio feed every 30 seconds. Here, nobody cared. That was good -- it gave him some time. He needed time.

"Heh, heh, hey Detective." George seemed nervous.

"Morning George. What do we have here?"

"Well, we got a... we got a..." stammered George. "You see, there's a..."

Barron held up his hand. "It's ok, George. I'll go check it out." Ducking under the police tape, Detective Barron walked carefully down the hill. Twenty feet down, he stopped. He pushed the transmit button on his communicator and spoke slowly.

"Dispatch, this is Detective Barron. I need a transport at my location. And call president Edwards. He's gonna want to know about this."